Finland and NATO: episode 423

(photo: Minister of Defence Häkämies, via HS) So, it goes like this: the head of the opposition say Finland won't join NATO ever, ever, ever - OK, so not quite never, but at least not in this or the next parliamentary term. So the defence minister does something quite new for a serving Finnish minister and says Finland should join NATO and, just for good measure, so should Sweden. The leader of one of the parties who is in coalition government with the defence minister's party says he was talking crap, but, despite agreeing with the leader of opposition's position, she puts the boot in there as well saying he was being "populist" by publicly stating the position that she also holds. The chair of the defence committee, who is from a party in the governing coalition, but not the same one as either the defence minister or the other party leader mentioned above, says "nothing's changing, we liked things perfectly well as they were in the 70s, will you just go away and leave us alone please". Now the President, who may or may not be in charge of these types of things, says "nothing to see here folks! No electoral advantage for me in wading into this mess. Move along now!" Still following?

Now, just to show how in Finland how the NATO debate get tacked on in utterly weird and irrational ways to completely different issues - have a look at this story. In short: loony, Soviet-nostalgist, Finnish "journalist", upsets the Estonian neighbours by saying they were much better off when they occupied by a totalitarian state. Go figure. But look at the quote from this "journalist" they finish with:

“From the Finnish point of view, the key question is whether Finland is a member of NATO at the time when the Estonian bloodbaths begin”, Hietanen notes.

WTF has NATO got to do with it? Why would it matter if Finland is or isn't a member beyond this nutter wants to get the words 'bloodbath' and 'NATO' into one sentence? I guess why just ride one hobby-horse, when you can ride two? And I'm meant to understand all this stuff for my PhD. I despair, I really do. Finland - you are officially doing my head in.

Norway trip photos, and how to sink an aircraft carrier

Anyone interested in more pics from my recent trip to Northern Norway should click the photo above and it should magically take you to a slide show.

We were climbing in the Lyngen area, and completely coincidently it came up in conversation at lunch today. I had been asked to give a speech on Finnish security policy to a group of visiting Dutch senior military officers. The Dutch dudes seemed to totally dig my speech, although I was somewhat aware that the hosts from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs had facial expressions that were inscrutable at best as I laid into Finnish security policy-making. Perhaps I won't be asked back... But that is by the by; at lunch after the discussion I was sitting next to two Dutch Naval officers, who before staff positions one had been a submariner and the other had captained a frigate. During the Cold War the Dutch had been integrated with British forces, particularly the Royal Marines and parts of the Royal Navy, in defending Northern Norway from the Soviets. Hence they knew exactly where Lyngenfjord was and informed me it's hard to get a submarine into! They also got quite nostalgic about the good old days of the Cold War and how great fun the big NATO exercise were up in the North. The submariner said he had "sunk" an American aircraft carrier on a number of occasions - (excuse the attempt at a Dutch accent) "Scho we schnuck in scho close you could reach out and open it up with a can opener!" The former frigate officer also said they had had great fun scaring the US navy by popping out of channels and fjords that the USN wouldn't try to navigate. He had nothing but respect for the USN when it came to fighting, but in peacetime exercises he said they were incredibly risk-averse - for example sailing all the way round Scotland to get in to the North Sea rather than going through the Straits of Dover where the bloody ferries wouldn't stop for them! Obviously America's NATO friends would take much delight in mercilessly exploiting these bureaucratic limitations when playing the enemy in exercises.

Lunch was both educational and great fun. Their other profound insight into European security policy was that the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy was screwed from the start because the British officer class was never going to have anything to do with something that is "so jolly common!" :-)

Finland and the EU Security Guarantees

There has recently been much, much interest amongst the Finnish political class about the supposed "EU Security Guarantees" that are perhaps, or perhaps not, in the Lisbon treaty (check this article and the links at the bottom, or these search results). After much early scepticism, the interest in them has swung in the opposite direction to a nearly-religious faith in the idea, despite the fact that no other EU member seems to take the idea centrally in their security planning. Why the sudden conversion? Because, almost ironically, the EU is not NATO. When the voters and the elites seem to be worrying that the country has some sort of security deficit (again, a problematic assumption in itself), the politicians want to respond but know they can't touch the third rail of Finnish politics and say "lets think about joining NATO!". Suggesting even considering NATO, regardless of all evidence on the ground as to what NATO now is and what is it likely to become, marks the politician out as a neo-imperialist, Yankee-loving, war-mongering, running-dog - or something along those lines. The Finnish NATO debate is about whether or not to join a NATO that hasn't existed for the best part of a decade. Joining that NATO may well be a good or not good idea for Finland, but the debate seems somewhat academic as that NATO doesn't exist.

But back to the EU. How seriously should we take the security guarantees? As yet - and things can change - not very seriously. If the EU won't send peacekeeping troops to Chad because of - errrr... - fighting that is taking place there, I can't imagine those in the Kremlin is having any sleepless nights over the massing EU armies forming on their western borders. The Chad situation - something that this blog has followed a bit in the past - is interesting in itself (for an excellent pithy briefing on the subject listen to this week's Instant Guide), but it also reflects a non-"robustness" (to use my favourite security policy euphemism) in the current, at least, EU approach to security.

Finland and NATO: episode 347

So the Russians don't want Finland to join Nato. Or maybe they don't mind and it was just one lowly diplomat speaking out of turn? Who knows and who cares? Not the President, who has very conspicuously made sure EVERBODY knows that this isn't important AT ALL! She certainly doesn't care. Not a jot.

This is a fun a story because I actually know some of the people involved including the now notorious Mr. Kozin of the Russian embassy. I used to be fascinated by the Finnish NATO debate, but to be honest now it's just getting rather dull now:
"To join or not to join, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Russians,
Or to take American arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them." Anyway - you get the picture, I'll stop bothering the Bard at this point.

Mr. Kozin's perhaps-scripted-from-on-high intervention in the debate isn't really that much of a shock: Russia doesn't want another of its neighbours to join the most powerful military alliance in the world?! Well - there's a shock! Perhaps a lowly American diplomat could go on Finnish TV and tell us all that "terrorists are like, totally bad and stuff" just to surprise us some more.

The more I watch the Finnish NATO debate, the more it strikes me that it really has nothing to do with NATO whatsoever. People aren't in the slightest interested in what NATO does, how it works (or doesn't to a great degree), and where it is going. Rather it's just a vague term for politicians to slap each other around the face with whilst shouting "you're naughty!", "No - you're naughty!"

Not so long ago I got told by Ministry of Defence guy, who every year lectures to the elite of Finnish society at the National Defence Courses, that these elites actually believe the same four things about NATO as everyone else in Finland: 1) The U.S. tells everyone what to do (well that worked SO well for the U.S. in building the Iraq 'coalition of the willing' didn't it?). 2) That Finnish conscripts will be forced to fight in foreign wars (would someone please tell the Bundeswehr this in Afghanistan? They obviously missed that memo). 3) It will cost huge amounts (the Finnish MoD reckons around €30m - one can argue whether that is a lot or not, but you get some little free gifts chucked in with membership like, you know, being under the American nuclear umbrella and stuff). 4) Small nations have no influence in the alliance (the Dutch keep proving this wrong to the occasional annoyance of the big nations).

There are all sorts of serious arguments as to why Finland shouldn't join NATO, some better than others, along with serious arguments for joining. But nobody ever airs them. They just go on slapping each other with cold war fishes, reinforcing widely held fallacies and jumping like frightened mice anytime a Russian says anything.